


Finding Home

by Ravin



Series: Becoming Real [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blanket Permission, First Meetings, Fix-It, Getting Together, M/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravin/pseuds/Ravin
Summary: Phil and Clint meet, then they fall in love.This is Coulson's PoV during the events ofI Found Myself (in you), but it can be read as a stand-alone piece if desired.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: Becoming Real [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668598
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your wonderful response to _I Found Myself (in you)_. I treasure every one of your comments and Kudos. Have another fic.

Agent Phil Coulson's day just kept getting worse. 

It started with him in the middle of some backwards country that didn’t even have coffee or donuts. Seriously! Phil needed coffee and donuts.

It got worse when the intel came in that invalidated everything they had originally planned.

The mission was supposed to be an elimination op, but Phil wanted to talk to the guy first.

Coulson had spent the last three months tracking this guy down. The agent before him had only lasted two before an arrow to his thigh put him in medical. The second arrow with the message “I know where you sleep” had him refusing to continue the job.

This person was good. 

He killed without much of a trace at all. Just a single arrow left behind. And tracking him was almost impossible. It seemed like he had a supernatural ability to avoid security cameras, and with the reputation he developed, people really wanted to stay on his good side. No one was eager to rat him out. Even tracking the guns and ammunition of specialty sniper rifles was out. Bows were not as heavily regulated and many of the arrows appeared to be homemade.

He also seemed to have some kind of moral compass. He wouldn’t take hits on kids and he wouldn’t kill innocent bystanders. He did kill basically anyone and everyone else, but Phil had met worse. Hell, he worked with worse.

Apparently though, his three months of work was about to go up in smoke because someone had got the location of Hawkeye’s next hit wrong. He had to move fast.

* * *

It took a lot of luck, but Coulson managed to get his team in a mostly orderly fashion in place without being spotted. It wasn’t as organized as he would have liked, but it would have to do.

Instead of the flawless, multi-directional ambush Phil previously planned. This would be rough and dirty. Relying on surprise and shock to get the job done.

Phil signaled to the other agents and they burst through the door. Coming out onto the rooftop as quickly as possible. Hoping to overwhelm the target before he began shooting. 

Phil shot as soon as he had a clear line of sight. Not a fatal shot, but a bullet in the thigh made it hard for anyone to run.

Down he went, rolling and twisting to keep his weapon aimed at the agents.

Phil saw agent Fernandez raise her tranq gun out of the corner of his eye, and knew he had to do something so she could get a shot off before Hawkeye did. Distraction it was.

“Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air.” 

They both knew he wouldn’t do it, but it put Hawkeye’s attention firmly on him.

Fernandez took the shot.

* * *

Once he was out, getting Hawkeye back to Shield was easy. They kept him sedated. 

Less than 24 hours after the op and Phil was back in his office drinking his coffee and eating his donuts. Hawkeye was secured in medical with a security camera pointed at him and the feed linked directly to Phil’s office.

Fury had decided that since Coulson had defied orders and brought Hawkeye in alive, then he was Coulson’s problem.

Phil was actually kind-of okay with that. 

It took Phil almost three whole months to catch this guy. It was impressive. Phil wanted to know how he did it.

Fury was convinced the “slippery mother-fucker” would try to escape. Possibly even be the first to successfully get away from a Shield facility.

Phil thought he could try to escape.

The medical restraints would hold him. If they couldn’t, the nurses could. Those people were tougher than 75 percent of the rest of Shield. They had to be with the kind of people they handled every day.

* * *

Several days and many useless conversations later, Coulson is not as sure. Medical he trusted, but those guys in lock-up were lazy. Many had been transferred there because they were useless in the field.

Coulson insisted on Hawkeye being sedated for the transfer. Lockup tried to insist it wasn’t necessary. The medical staff were much more agreeable, and they had the drugs.

Hawkeye went to sleep in medical and woke up in holding.

The idiots tried to stop him from getting a special camera setup, like he’d had in medical, but Fury overrode them. Thank god.

Within minutes of Barton getting on his feet, he disappeared into the wall, and the guards didn’t notice a thing. 

Coulson left his chair spinning as he ran through his door, already barking orders into his phone.

* * *

Once he persuaded Hill into giving him access to the Building blueprints, Phil systematically narrowed down Barton’s possible exit points. Less than fifteen minutes had passed, but Phil had agent’s covering all of them. The one in the empty fifth floor office seemed unlikely, but knowing Barton, Phil took that one himself.

Phil took up his self-appointed position just outside the office door, out of sight of the vent. When he heard clinking and a quiet thud, Phil knew he was right. 

The look on Barton’s face when Phil swung in with his gun was priceless.

Coulson kept his gun trained on the man as another agent cuffed him. Once Barton was properly restrained, he holstered his weapon, but followed along after them as they escorted Barton back to lockup. He needed to have words with some of their personnel.

The crash of shattering glass had them all jumping and looking back. Phil’s hand twitched towards his gun. He only barely resisted the urge to draw it.

He turned his gaze away from Agent Youseff and her broken coffee mug and back to Barton. Barton, who wasn’t startled. Barton who was looking around, confused. Barton, who hadn’t said a word despite his reputation as a smart-ass. Barton who always watched his mouth when Coulson came to talk. 

Interesting.


	2. Until It's Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint begins to work at SHIELD. Coulson realizes he's in love.

Getting Barton a pair of hearing aids changed everything.

Barton glared as he took them, but he immediately inserted them and started fiddling with the settings.

Phil waited patiently for him to finish before he began to talk. “Clint Barton, I am Agent Phil Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division-”

“What sadistic fucker came up with that?”

Now that he could hear, Barton began to talk. The rumors were right. This guy never seemed to shut up. He was like a toddler. Only quiet when he was getting into trouble.

“You know, you look more like a tax guy than a secret agent.”

“What’s a guy as smart as you doing working for a dump like this?”

“You take orders from a pirate!?”

He never stopped.

Phil had meant to assign Hawkeye to his own pool of assets, but with his mouth, Phil wasn’t sure he wanted him any more.

Barton bounced around handlers faster than any other agent before. Gardener. Blunt. Green. Garcia. But Phil knew he’d find one that fit eventually. Stevens. Ralts. Bryant. He just had to give it time. Barton was a perfect asset. Grover. Michaels. Maddox. Damn it.

Phil knew what he had to do after that fuck-up. Barton was being wasted on those low-level missions anyways.

Their first op together went beautifully. Phil found that he didn’t mind the smart ass comments nearly as much as he’d thought he would. 

It was in Venezuela. Phil got the intelligence on the black market weapons dealer, made the plan, made sure everything would happen in their favor. Clint helped. He offered his own insights into the target. Made his own observations. Showed Phil the best sniper locations, and explained why they’d work better than the ones Phil had picked. 

They completed the op in half the time allotted and with no casualties.

Their second op went the same. And the third. The fourth. The fifteenth. There were screw-ups along the way of-course. Ops didn’t always go according to plan. Bad things happened to good people, But Phil and Clint? They worked together. There were hiccups along the way, but soon Phil and Clint were SHIELD legends. The kind of partners discussed in envious whispers around the water cooler. 

The rumors about them were ridiculous.

“Did you know, Coulson once killed a guy with a Chinese finger trap.”

“I heard it was a paperclip.”

“Nah man, he did that too but it was a different mission.”

Phil smirked as he passed the gossiping agents. Half those rumors were started by Clint, but he didn’t really mind. 

Everything changed in Budapest. In Budapest, Barton was supposed to eliminate the Black Widow. In Budapest, Clint disobeyed orders. In Budapest, Clint disappeared.

The SHIELD rumor mill went nuts. 

Hawkeye had gone undercover.

Hawkeye was being mind-controlled.

Hawkeye had been captured by an enemy.

Hawkeye had betrayed SHIELD.

Hawkeye had never been loyal to SHIELD.

The envious glances and whispers turned to ones of pity. Some even malicious, accusing him of being a traitor too. If he was as skilled as the rumors said, then how could he have missed it? He had to be in on it.

Phil tried to ignore them. Tried to go about his work as usual. Tried to forget. But he couldn’t help but hear. Couldn’t help but remember.

Clint on the couch in his office. The couch he never used himself anymore. Never fell asleep on anymore, because Clint made sure he left the office at a decent hour.

Clint flicking paperclips at the ceiling. The perfect designs of targets and arrows left behind in holes on the ceiling tiles.

Clint climbing out the air vent and begging Phil to hide him. May storming in and demanding where that “infernal child” was hiding. Phil not telling her he was under the desk.

Clint cooking at his apartment and watching bad sitcoms with him. 

Clint laughing at Phil’s dry humor, when no one else understood.

Clint bringing him his favorite donuts and coffee fixed just the way he liked it.

They say you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Phil never understood that saying until now.


	3. Never gonna Stop Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains a character's thoughts about not wanting to live. They don't think about suicide exactly, just about how they don't want to live any longer.

Two months passed by. Phil would like to say they were a blur. He would like to pretend they were normal. He would like to say that he didn’t miss Clint Barton. He would be lying.

Clint’s absence was like missing a tooth. He couldn’t help but noticing it every minute of the day, no matter how much he tried to stop. Tried to forget. Tried to go back to life before Clint.

And then Clint came back. Just showed up at SHIELD with a red-headed assassin in tow. He practically begged Phil, “Can we keep her?” Like she was a lost puppy.

Phil couldn’t say no. Not to Clint. Not ever to Clint. And so he went to Fury. Pulled every card he had for Clint. Not just so they could keep Natasha, but so that Phil could keep Clint. So that Fury didn’t send Clint to the RAFT for his little stunt. Phil never told Clint about that. Never mentioned the favors he had called in for Clint. 

He also didn’t tell Clint he loved him. Not for a long time.

Clint made the first move. 

He rushed into Phil’s office, through the door for once, instead of the vents. And the question was tumbling from his mouth before the door had even swung all the way shut behind him.

“Willyougoonadatewithme?”

And Phil said yes.

* * *

For a time, everything was good. No. Everything was better than good. It was perfect.

Sure they fought, like normal couples. And there was that one incident at SHIELD HQ in the supply closet when Clint got a little handsy, and Phil still couldn't tell him no. But his life was better than he ever imagined. 

He had a smoking-hot husband with a heart of gold. A husband that knew about and understood his dangerous, top-secret job. For the first time in a long time, Phil had someone to come back to after a hard mission. Instead of an empty apartment, Phil had a _home_.

Life was beautiful.

And then things weren’t so beautiful.

Loki came.

Clint was gone.

When Hawkeye attacked the hellicarrier, Phil didn’t hesitate because that shell with the empty blue eyes wasn’t Clint.

Clint was warm smiles and stupid jokes. Clint was smart-ass comments over the comm and bringing home a one-eyed dog that definitely had fleas. Clint was the eyes watching his back and the shield keeping him safe.

It might have looked like Clint, but that wasn’t Clint.

So when the first impact hit, Phil headed to the armory. Loki had taken Clint, taken Phil’s home from him. Phil didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to get Clint back. But he knew what Clint would do. 

Clint would stick an arrow in Loki’s eye socket. Phil couldn’t fire Clint’s bows, but he thought he might have something better.

* * *

Loki stabbed Phil through his chest. Loki stabbed Phil, and Phil was dying. Phil was dying, but it was okay. Everything was okay, because Loki had already ripped his heart out and stolen away with it. It was okay because Clint was gone, and Phil didn’t want to live in a world without Clint.

Shooting Loki felt pretty good though.

* * *

Phil never expected to wake up. He didn’t want to wake up. He woke up anyway, alone in a SHIELD medical unit with no one waiting at his bedside. 

When the nurses and doctors came, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask. Because if he didn’t ask then maybe he could at least pretend for a few more hours. Pretend Clint was just off on a mission somewhere. Pretend he would be coming back pissed off and spitting curses at Fury for Phil getting injured. Pretend Clint wasn’t dead. And he would be dead. 

Natasha knew what it was like to be a puppet, forced to kill for a cause not her own. She wouldn’t leave Clint in Loki’s hands, and Phil knew, Clint wouldn’t want her to. Clint would rather be dead than made into a weapon against those he loved.

Then Fury came. He explained everything that happened. Told him about the Battle of New York, as it was being called. Told him about Loki’s defeat. Told him about Natasha fighting Clint. Told him how they got Clint back.

Then Fury told him about his plan. How he told the Avengers that Phil was dead. Fury wanted Phil to stay dead.

And Phil decided to take another idea from his internal what-would-Clint-do voice. He told Fury where to shove it.

Clint was his home. Fury was not going to keep them apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested, you can find me on Tumblr as [Shadow-Ravin](https://shadow-ravin.tumblr.com/). Mostly reblogs, but I do occasionally post snippets from pieces I'm working on.
> 
> I'm currently working on a Bucky & Natasha fic currently titled _Kill List_ , but I'm also seriously considering adding more to this series. Maybe something with Clint post-Avengers (2012) finding out Phil was dead, but then not dead? IDK let me know if anyone is interested in this. Also stuff about how Phil not being thought dead changes the other movies? I know it has been done many times before, but I've never written it, and I kind-of want to. So thoughts, comments, and kudos are always appreciated. Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> This one is going to be two, maybe three chapters long. I intend to write more after the end of the first fic. I'm not sure when I'll get them finished and posted, but I have more time than normal because of COVID-19. Things are a little shaky here though (literally shaky there was an earthquake this morning). But I'm okay, and I hope all of you are too.


End file.
